Regulatory rules have helped put Telstra in the uncomfortable position of launching the most expensive National Broadband Network fibre-based plans in the Australian market.
The incumbent carrier, which launched its fibre-based plans yesterday, has faced unfavourable coverage in the national media for the cost of services, and …

Wtf? Downvote?

Re: Wtf? Downvote?

Who knows about the downvote. However the point is valid and reminds me of Telstra's shitty usage plans when I first came to Australia in 2006. I came from paying $35/month for ADSL2+ (with decent rates, 8+Mb/s) and usage of 30GB/month to not being able to get ADSL with speeds above 1.5Mb/s and having to pay $90/month for 12GB usage on cable. Looks like history is repeating itself.

I've looked around internationally and for around $50-55/month + $15 line rental (it's the UK so FTTC) you can get a 100Mb/s down, 15Mb/s up connection with a massive cap (says unlimited, but would be massive due to regulator intervention on use of "unlimited"), evening and weekend calls and *free* access to 3.5m domestic and 400,000 wi-fi points. The company? British Telecom, the UK's answer to Telstra and much loathed operator. If even they can offer service off their own back surely Telstra can stop being thieving fucks? Sure, the UK is much smaller but then they went FTTC not FTTP, and have been updating the backbone for years, which means the company is paying most of the bill itself.

Forced to maintain copper?

How does that work? Telcos might be forced to make it available, but does each house have to rent a copper landline? I know people who have disconnected their landline and have gone mobile for everything. I also know people with telstra cable (for tv & internet) and no landline.

Re: Forced to maintain copper?

Yes - and around where I live, 50km south of the national capital, the USO might as well be the Universal Unreliable Service Obligation. Our Telstra voice line fails a number of times each year, as the cabling and pair gain system fall apart with age; and trying to get Telstra to change anything to give me ADSL is a frustrating bad joke. Back in 2006 I rang up Telstra Countrywide a number of times to get an answer as to whether the cabling magic that allows our neighbours to get ADSL could be extended to our brand new service, seeing as how we're connected to the same Elevated Joint roadside pillar. Each time I was told that they would look into it, and that someone would get back to me... followed by a total lack of any response. At the time, TCW's motto was "Now we are talking". Unfortunately for me, that was all they did.

With their NBN plan pricing and conditions, it seems that Telstra is trying to keep as many customers as possible connected to their monopolistic, works-unless-it-doesn't copper local loop, so that if the Opposition manages to get government in 2013 and starts killing the NBN's FTTP network, Telstra will need to do nothing (except renegotiate the structural separation agreement and collect a fat compensation payment from the new Government) in order to continue serving most of its customer base over good old-fashioned copper.

Not me though. My copper service is unlikely ever to support broadband, and it often doesn't work for voice, most recently for a whole week. Fixed Wireless Terminal can't be very much worse than that, and at least I'll have a small choice of providers. That's my pathetic protest at Telstra's approach to the NBN.

Bye Bye Telstra

The only thing the article doesn't state, is that this situation is nothing new to Telstra.

Telstra have ALWAYS been the most expensive option for data (And communications in general). Then they make sure there are areas that they cover that give no one else a look in (See Telstra Velocity), and make sure people are forced to use them at the overpriced rates that they charge.

So its nothing new really, business as normal at T, thankyou for staying on hold, an overseas representative will be with you in a few hours!

Can you see I just had to go through a painful process of activating a Telstra Velocity connection recently? :)